


i will fall (long before you break me)

by capaldi



Category: Lost Girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 22:06:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2166876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capaldi/pseuds/capaldi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>being so absolutely vulnerable and completely open with another person; it was unlike anything she’d ever felt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i will fall (long before you break me)

Tamsin’s not sure what she feels.

The tightening in her chest, and uncontrollable waterworks – that was sadness. That’s what Tamsin felt when Kenzi threw herself into the portal (not _died_ because death is a definitive matter). And it’s what she continues to feel, but in bursts. It starts from her chest, to her throat, and sometimes her eyes and she can’t quite pinpoint the feeling.

 _You don’t categorize feelings, you just feel them,_ Kenzi once tells her, when they’re both a little drunk and flopping around in Bo’s bed (what’s hers is mine, Kenzi makes a point of announcing). Tamsin thinks she kind of gets what Kenzi’s saying, like she kind of gets what Dyson was saying about love. When Bo put her arm around her, it felt warm and all kinds of pleasant.

She’s not sure if it was the same love Dyson had described, but it felt nice, and that was good enough at the time.

Tamsin thinks – no feels – that she misses Kenzi a lot.

\---

It’s just Bo, Dyson, and her on most nights, and when they’re not stressing out over how to rescue Kenzi, they’re drinking to their bodily limits. Tamsin draws the short straw that night and picks up the booze despite her grumblings.

“There’s uh, a few missing but more than enough to get wasted for the night,” she brightens, holding back a belch.

The lights were still on, but there was nobody there.

“Goddamnit guys. I did not just freeze my ass off for you to –“

Tamsin stops when she nears the bedroom door because there are _noises_ , the kind that once prompted Kenzi to cover her ears and steer her away when she was still in her child phase ( _Valkyries have exceptional hearing,_ Tamsin remarks one day, to Kenzi’s horror).

She doesn’t need to venture further to realize what’s happening behind those doors. And she certainly doesn’t need to see it to confirm the uncomfortable tightness traveling towards her chest.

A different sort of sadness, Tamsin surmises.

\---

There’s something special, valuable about her – Tamsin realizes this when she grows wings and nearly kills a man (and later does). It’s guilt and discomfort all wrapped up in one. It’s also when she decides that she can’t experience everything stuck in the clubhouse.

So Tamsin packs her bags and takes off without warning. Leaves a specialized note for Kenzi, and decides to recover the lives she’s lost.

She returns from her journey with her memories intact and something else – regret.

\---

It’s not her fault. It’s not Dyson’s, or Bo’s. It’s Kenzi’s for being the best of them.

(It’s also all of theirs for letting her down)

\---

Bo works day and night, discussing with Trick and actually doing the recommended reading. All of it is to save Kenzi like she saved Bo. Dyson lives at the Dal most nights, mopey and anxious to start a fight, much to Trick’s displeasure. But one look at his depressed visage, and Trick just sighs and continues polishing his glass.

Tamsin joins them sometimes, helping Bo with her homework using her various lifetimes of knowledge. She drinks with Dyson and has his back when he needs it (she’d never admit it but she kind of enjoys this kind of thing). This way, there’s no downtime for thinking, and _remembering._

Downtime for Bo and Dyson is the bedroom. They’re not together, in any sense of the word, but it’s also not just feeding. _It’s about trust, having that one person in the world you can still trust to the core,_ Dyson relays to her one night when they’re both less than sober.

“Why not Lauren then?” Tamsin blurts.

“What?”

“You said it’s about trust. So why doesn’t Bo feed off Lauren then?”

“Because then it’s about love. She doesn’t want to risk losing someone she loves again.”

They each play with their own drinks for a bit and neither wants to say the thing at the tip of their tongue.

\---

(Because Bo doesn’t love them, not like she loves Lauren)

\---

It was supposed to help, the journey. Her memories were supposed to help Bo uncover her past and save the world. It wasn’t supposed to end with Tamsin holding Kenzi’s cold, lifeless body in her arms.

Tamsin does her job with a heavy heart, delivering Kenzi’s body beyond Valhalla’s gates. She prays Bo has something brilliant planned because Valhalla isn’t just fun and games. That sort of darkness, it’s easy to lose yourself when you’re there.

“She’s gone, Dyson,” Tamsin struggles between heaving breaths. She latches onto Dyson, eyes frantic and voice wavering. She thinks she might break.

It was said to be an honor, fulfilling the duties of a Valkyries. Or at least it’s what she extracts from her earliest memories. It’s a proud thing to be taking the slain warriors of the battlefield to their final resting place.

But she learns with time that there’s no dignity in death. Dying valiantly, dying in vain, they’re all the same. Either way, it’s an ugly, desperate process.

They drink to Kenzi sometimes, and Tamsin raises her glass higher than most. She wishes Kenzi hadn’t been a hero. She wishes she’d clung desperately to life and lived instead, because that would have been easier.

\---

She’s understating it when she says she didn’t expect Bo to slam her against the wall the minute she steps through the door. Her jacket’s ripped from her chest and hot, eager lips are pressing against her own before Tamsin could say a word.

“What--” Tamsin struggles out in between kisses. Bo’s eyes are that voracious shade of blue, the way she gets when she really needs to feed.

It’s going fast, like her bra is already unhooked type of fast, and Tamsin kind of whimpers out a soft, “wait,” and then again. Louder.

Bo stills, light still burning in her eyes, but her hands have retracted from their place on her hips. She stumbles backward when she locks eyes on Tamsin.

“Oh shit Tamsin. Sorry, I thought you were Dyson,” Bo frowns. Any other day Tamsin would be pissed at the comparison but Bo’s eyes are normal again, and frustratingly apologetic.

She may be reborn but her Valkyrie senses are at the top of their game. And the doubt, she could smell it. Normally she would bask in it, relish the high before feeding, but this was Bo doubting Tamsin, wishing it were Dyson in her place.

She could do that. Play his role. She could do a hell of a better job than him.

“No, I’m not Dyson. But don’t be sorry.”

Tamsin launches herself at Bo, lips crashing with bruising force. The doubt quickly dissipates when she slips a palm under Bo’s shirt.

She’s had succubi feed on her before. Because it would have been a waste to live all those lives without experiencing something so intense. It’s different every time, and different with each person.

With Bo, it’s equal parts exhilarating and excruciating. The sex, the way Bo just slips her fingers in without warning has Tamsin biting down hard on her lower lip. Because she’s not a screamer, and certainly not for Bo. It’s just one long wordless exchange, the two of them both operating entirely on instinct and pleasure. And it’s just as raw and invigorating as Tamsin envisioned.

Then comes the pain, in matching strokes to the erratic thrusts of her fingers, where Tamsin could feel her life force being sucked out of her body. She’s grateful for it – the pain – because it grounds her in a way that forces her to remember that this is all just a feed.

And when she comes, so easily and harder than she means to, Tamsin thinks she understands what Dyson means by trust.

\---

(Being so absolutely vulnerable and completely open with another person; it was unlike anything she’d ever felt)

\---

They don’t really talk about it for the rest of the week. On the one occasion that Bo reluctantly brings it up, Tamsin quickly changes the subject and ignores the questioning looks from Bo. But she doesn’t press, which Tamsin appreciates, because it’s not a conversation she wants to have, or even knows how to have.

Dyson knows, of course, when Tamsin slips out – runs out – of the clubhouse after the feed and bumps into him and his stupidly sensitive sense of smell ( _Did you just…? He starts and Tamsin stops him with her best glare before stomping off)._

He doesn’t pry either, but Tamsin’s dying to know. So she fills him up with shots first before asking.

“So, are you guys still fucking?”

He stops drinking, and looks at her through his now translucent, and non-broody eyes. The plus side of getting Dyson drunk and deathly honest.

“Why, do you want in now that you’ve had a taste?” he asks, with an amused inflection.

“Down, wolf-boy,” she warns, “I’m just visiting my options.”

“Options? I didn’t know there were options.”

She didn’t think there were any either. It was just a feed, right? A natural, biological urge that needed to be sated and Tamsin just happened to be the one on call.

“What I mean is, are we just her free-for-all buffet, or is there something more to this?”

“Well if you want, we could set up a schedule. You take Mondays and Wednesdays and I’ll get the weekends.”

She elbows him hard in the ribs as he laughs, spilling his drink across the counter.

“You’re a fucking terrible conversationalist, you know that?”

\---

The second time it’s not nearly as awkward, but twice as life-threatening when Bo staggers through door clutching her side. There’s no time for hesitation or grace when there’s blood sleeping through the white of her tank. Tamsin’s in full mode panic and half shaking as she pulls Bo towards her and drags her teeth across her lower lip, urging her to feed. It doesn’t take more incentive than that.

It’s fast and voracious and a literal bloody mess. But it’s well worth the relief when Tamsin sees the light return to Bo’s eyes as she finishes.

She watches as Bo collapses on the couch, and slowly nods off to the lull of her breathing.

\---

It’s at least their eighth time before they finally do it on a bed. It’s nice, Tamsin notes. No potential floor burns or embedded couch objects poking into your back. And it solves the problem of whether or not to slip out unnoticed because they both just naturally pass out afterwards.

And it’s worth waking up to one leg slung casually over hers, an overextending arm, limbs harmlessly entangled and all the things she thought would be the awkward portion of staying the night but instead feels decidedly warm.

But it only takes one time that she opens her eyes and sees Bo staring intently at her face for it to all sink in.

And when it does, it feels like a cascade of emotions crashing, surging and sending her into a mode of panic. She jumps off the bed and starts gathering her stuff.

“Wha – what are you doing?” Bo asks.

Fuck fuck fuck.

“Tamsin, what’s going on?”

She can’t. She can’t look into her eye without the truth pouring out like a disgustingly desperate plea. Just one time that she forgets her safeguards, and the four letter curse hammers its way relentlessly into her chest.

“I’m sorry, I can’t. I just –“

Tamsin inhales sharply on that last word and leaves.

\---

“What the hell is going on between you too?”

She gets caught by Dyson on one of those nights that she really just wants to be left alone.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh c’mon Tamsin. You’re hiding out in your truck for god’s sake and I know how much you hate that shithole. What the hell happened between you and Bo?”

“I don’t know okay. Something. Nothing,” she replies bitterly.

“Is this about you falling in love with her?”

She stares at him dumbly, like he’s just said something unnaturally intelligent.

“You know, for someone who’s so good at reading other people, you’re really bad at reading your own heart.”

And doesn’t she know it. Question is, what now?

“It doesn’t matter. It’s never gonna happen. And it shouldn’t,” she affirms.

She expects Dyson to retort with some inappropriate threesome invitation but he just nurses his drink and sits there contemplating God knows what. It’s only after he pays the tab that he pipes up.

“She hasn’t, you know, _requested my services_ for over a month now. I don’t know if that means anything but I thought you should know.”

It does, but not in a good way. Not in a way that mitigates her pain.

\---

She rushes over when she gets Bo’s text. _Emergency, need you NOW._ She’s flush, out of breath when she arrives at the clubhouse and sees Bo sitting cross-legged on the couch, completely uninjured.

“Okay, do not tell me I ran all the way from the other side of the city for _this_ ,” she fumes.

“You’ve been avoiding my calls so this was the only way I could get you here,” Bo glares back.

“Well you clearly don’t need me for anything so I’m just gonna peace out here.”

“Tamsin, we need to talk,” she says softly.

About what? Because Tamsin couldn’t imagine anything good coming out of this.

“Okay I don’t know what I did wrong to piss you off, but I still need you,” Bo says, getting off the couch and moving towards her.

God, this is so not what she needs right now.

“Look I couldn’t protect Kenzi that time, but I’m not gonna fail her again. I’m gonna get her back, and I can’t do it without your help Tamsin.” She’s really close now, like if Tamsin could actually look up she’s pretty sure she’d be getting a detailed visual on her face.

“I didn’t exactly do a bang-up job of protecting her either,” she shoots back, trying to keep an even voice.

“For what it’s worth, Trick’s been telling me not to dwell in the past.  We can’t beat ourselves up about it forever.”

“Well, my heart’s beating the shit out of me right now.”

Fuck. What a stupid thing to let slip. Tamsin expects there to be surprise, with an obvious element of disgust, but Bo’s expression actually softens. And the pounding in her chest rises a notch.

“Dyson told me,” Bo starts, “About you and how you felt. He didn’t mean to,” she hurriedly adds, when Tamsin lets out her displeasure in a scowl. “I kinda got him dead drunk beforehand,” she smiles guiltily.

Fucking Dyson. She’s never telling him shit again.

“You wanted an answer right? Well my answer is – I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel about you.”

These bunch of indecisive little shits. Tamsin has no idea why she bothered with someone who couldn’t even pick a goddamn side.

“But I do know what I feel about Dyson,” Bo continues. “He’s someone I’ll trust forever to have my back. Someone who’ll believe in me even when I don’t believe in myself. And Lauren,” she pauses, affection seeping into her tone. “She grounds me. Reminds me that I’m unaligned because I love Fae _and_ humans. But you’re different. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Try.”

Bo startles at the invitation, and Tamsin could almost see her trying to organize her thoughts.

“It’s like, you know when I feed, I can taste the deepest qualities and emotions of that person. For Dyson, it’s loyalty, and Lauren, it’s safety. But with you, it’s much more complex. The first time I tasted you, it was like inhaling a powerful torrent of regret and anguish.”

Bo reaches out and cups the side of Tamsin’s face, which startles her, and even moreso when she channels her energy through her.

“It’s warm right?” Bo asks, and Tamsin could only nod dumbly. “You’ve changed Tamsin. You don’t taste as harsh anymore. It’s like an addicting blend of light and dark.”

Tamsin wishes everyone would stop being so cryptic because Kenzi isn’t here to decipher all this emotional jargon for her.

“I haven’t fed on anyone else because when I’m with you, I don’t feel like I need to hold back. It sounds incredibly selfish but with you, I feel like I can just take what I need, and I really need that right now.”

Tamsin’s not sure what she expected, but this answer is probably better than she deserved, so she should really just run with it while she could.

“Okay,” she breathes.

“Okay?”

“Okay we’re gonna get Kenzi back you dipshit,” she snorts, invoking a smile from Bo.

“Does this mean we’re good?”

“Yeah just, promise me we won’t have this conversation every time we have sex.”

Bo laughs, and something clicks inside Tamsin. Happiness, she recalls Kenzi saying. 


End file.
